I was nineteen and living with a girlfriend on State Street near the Water Towers. She was filming a movie. The movie paid for her 23rd story apartment with its white carpet, crystal chandelier, hotel beige lamps, beige curtains, and the sunken living room that I slept in. We ate Cobb salads five nights a week in a diner with brown vinyl booths below the high rise. The other two nights we ate Chicago burgers and drank laxative Lacie Le Beau tea.
Blow up dolls in the window with blonde hair and checkered mini skirts in knee-highs. Brunettes with cherry red lips and black vinyl thigh-high boots. We walked by these blow-up girls every night that we rented a movie. Us staring at them. Them staring at us, waiting to be bought. The dolls made us feel fat and sad. I got a job at 24 Hour Fitness β the am shift checking people in. I stood there in the uniform of a white nylon shirt and shiny blue spandex leggings.
That lasted four days. I opened another can of Bumble Bee tuna and thought of my first job. I was nine years old, cleaning houses on the island I lived on. My neighbor sat in his navy blue Hanes underwear on the floor as I was folding them and putting them in his drawer. Cleaning his sink and toilet with Ajax. Finding quarters and putting them in my pockets. I get up. Open another can of tuna. Sit back down. Read about more three hundred dollar an hour jobs.
I throw the can of tuna out and pick up the phone. I got the feeling you need to make a little money and you got not a thing to worry over. There was a velour zebra on the wall, and three girls sat on a jungle-green fake leather couch underneath the zebra with their legs crossed, eating baloney sandwiches. Another one sits cross-legged on the floor filing her nails. My hair is long, dyed henna red.
I am pale and nervous. I undress. Stand there. Sam leans back in his swivel chair behind his desk. Motions for me to turn around. I wondered if he had read a book while he waited for me. Man number two was at a fancy hotel.
